I gave my students iPads – then wished I could take them back • Hacker News Board

Re: I gave my students iPads – then wished I could take them back

#91

Post by rtkwe » Mon, Dec 07, 2015, 4:14 PM UTC

baldfat wrote: post #12

My school district has lost almost 20% of the teachers and looking at another $13,000,000 in deficit next year. they can afford iPads what a BROKEN Education Funding System we have! Latino students get $0.85 for every dollar spent on White non-Hispanic students. > writes about how we are sacrificing connections, one quick check of our screens at a time The old Computers cause people to disconnect and check out argume…

Part of that is that there are funds that are siloed to be spent only on getting tech into the hands of kids so money spent there by the school system couldn't necessarily be spent elsewhere by the school.

Re: I gave my students iPads – then wished I could take them back

#92

Post by greyman » Mon, Dec 07, 2015, 4:15 PM UTC

dublinben wrote: post #79

greyman wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linux, Raspberry Pi and robots are very specialized topics... we are talking about general education of 8 years old kids.

General education of 8 year olds does not require expensive computing devices.

I agree. They could just use books in all classes like before, and possibly netbooks in an IT class (if they have one). It seems to me that the article came to the similar conclusion.

Re: I gave my students iPads – then wished I could take them back

#93

Post by lintiness » Mon, Dec 07, 2015, 4:16 PM UTC

coldpie wrote: post #90

lintiness wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

cities like chicago have near 3% property taxes to pay current teachers average salaries over $75k/yr. with health, with vacation, with summers, with cola, with lifetime guaranteed pensions of 70%+. school admins routinely take home $125k+. when are we going to stop with the nonsense that teachers save the world while starving in their yugos?

When it stops being true, I imagine. http://www.payscale.com/research/US/All_K-12_Teachers/Salary

https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d11/tables/dt11_083.asp

how about using a real source. payscale.com?

Re: I gave my students iPads – then wished I could take them back

#94

Post by robmcm » Mon, Dec 07, 2015, 4:17 PM UTC

pavel_lishin wrote: post #43

greyman wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but please tell me why playing with Legos is any more valuable than playing minecraft? She did - because it encouraged collaboration and conversation.

Minecraft is multiplayer, and supports chat.

It's also the conversations that go on when they are not playing that impresses me.

Less so with lego, as it's look at this, then destroyed and forgotten. With minecraft they have to articulate what they have created and why, and continuously improve and develop things.

Re: I gave my students iPads – then wished I could take them back

#95

Post by smileysteve » Mon, Dec 07, 2015, 4:20 PM UTC

megaman22 wrote: post #78

CodeWriter23 wrote: post #22

We don't have any of those problems at my daughter's school. First, all the iPads are locked down using some management software, so the kids are locked out of the clock, etc. that can cause unintentional distractions. Second, they limit use to about 30 minutes per day, so traditional lessons are taught using traditional techniques. Third, our school emphasizes social interaction with project-based learning, with the…

I would have flunked out of such a school, instead of being my class valedictorian. Group projects and emphasizing socialization is a crutch that incompetent teachers use to force their intelligent students to do their job for them.

> Group projects and emphasizing socialization is a crutch that incompetent teachers use to force their intelligent students to do their job for them.

I find the opposite true in my career. Business is 95% about how you interact with others; whether that is teaching, listening to, meeting with, understanding morale, etc.

Let's look at Agile, socialization is at the key, people over processes, scrum meetings every morning looking for who needs help and who can help, sprint meetings with product managers selling ideas to engineers and engineers discussing how it will be solved, retrospectives where everybody tries to figure out what went right/wrong and what to do better.

Then there is pair programming, which is the definition of a group project.

Re: I gave my students iPads – then wished I could take them back

#96

Post by tormeh » Mon, Dec 07, 2015, 4:21 PM UTC

joshstrange wrote: post #88

tormeh wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but since students usually do better without computers it's better to use it on the library or simply not take the money.

Want to provide some kind of source for that claim?

Yes: http://www.keepeek.com/Digital-Asset-Management/oecd/educati...

(it's an OECD study. I don't really know their pedigree as a source of evidence)

Re: I gave my students iPads – then wished I could take them back

#97

Post by pavel_lishin » Mon, Dec 07, 2015, 4:28 PM UTC

robmcm wrote: post #94

pavel_lishin wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Minecraft is multiplayer, and supports chat.

It's also the conversations that go on when they are not playing that impresses me. Less so with lego, as it's look at this, then destroyed and forgotten. With minecraft they have to articulate what they have created and why, and continuously improve and develop things.

Minecraft as a method of teaching tech debt!

Re: I gave my students iPads – then wished I could take them back

#98

Post by coldpie » Mon, Dec 07, 2015, 4:31 PM UTC

lintiness wrote: post #93

coldpie wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When it stops being true, I imagine. http://www.payscale.com/research/US/All_K-12_Teachers/Salary

https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d11/tables/dt11_083.asp how about using a real source. payscale.com?

So bizarre that you used a specific outlier case of $75-125k, more than twice what the actual average is. And given that your outlier exists, I wonder what that says about teacher salaries on the lower end of the bell curve given the average of $55k.

Re: I gave my students iPads – then wished I could take them back

#99

Post by lintiness » Mon, Dec 07, 2015, 4:34 PM UTC

coldpie wrote: post #98

lintiness wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d11/tables/dt11_083.asp how about using a real source. payscale.com?

So bizarre that you used a specific outlier case of $75-125k, more than twice what the actual average is. And given that your outlier exists, I wonder what that says about teacher salaries on the lower end of the bell curve given the average of $55k.

no idea what you're talking about. your number fits a ba with zero experience on a national average. teachers make a lot more with even limited experience in big population areas (with politicians on the dole) with corresponding higher cost of living (ie. chicago, where i stated).

Re: I gave my students iPads – then wished I could take them back

#100

Post by CaptSpify » Mon, Dec 07, 2015, 4:42 PM UTC

edc117 wrote: post #65

TeMPOraL wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's sort of the point of "teaching the children not just how to use their computer but how to take responsibility for keeping it running".

Show of hands: who here would want to be the admin for a network you know is going to be routinely infected with any number of malware or rootkits.

I would, depending on the implementation. Basically, can I just have a "wipe-and-go" policy? or do I have to manage user-settings/profiles/etc.

Things are much easier if you "embrace" the idea that you'll be infected, and that machines aren't special snowflakes.